Here at Eley Consultancy Ltd we have just finished watching a live HMRC webinar about the new Safety & Security requirements that will be coming into affect post Brexit.
The information that we obtained from the webinar was as follows:
From the 1st January 2021, all goods being imported into the UK will now have to have an Entry Summary Declaration (ENS) (Safety & Security Declaration) completed before they will be allowed into the UK. This is relevant to all goods entering the UK, not just from the EU.
For goods entering the Great Britain (with the exception of Northern Ireland), goods will need to be submitted into a brand new service called S&S GB. Northern Ireland will continue to use the Import Control System (ICS).
To be able to use the S&S GB service, the person completing the ENS will need to have a GB EORI number. For Northern Ireland bound goods using the ICS system, an XI EORI number will be required.
You will be able to register for S&S GB from the 11th December 2020 through your Government Gateway ID and should approximately take around 5 to 10 minutes to register according to HMRC.
However and here is the slightly complicated part. To be able to use S&S GB you will either need to have access to a Community Service Provided (CSP) or third party software that is set up for it. HMRC were not able to provide a list of providers as yet, but these will hopefully be forthcoming in the next few weeks. They suggested that it might be worth speaking to your software providers to see if they are making the necessary preparations for S&S GB and for ICS.
The timelines for submitting an ENS into the S&S GB, will vary from 24 hours to 1 hour prior, depending on how you are moving goods (e.g. b container, airfreight etc) – we will provide further details on these, once they have been made available.
The most important information that will be required on the ENS will be the following:
- Consignor (Seller)
- Consignne (Buyer)
- Carrier (Person lodging ENS + GB EORI number)
- Goods description or commodity code
- Date & time of arrival into the UK (GMT)
Amendments to ENS will only be able to be made by the person who lodged the ENS. Depending on whether you submitted the ENS through S&S GB or ICS will also depend on when you can make amendments up till as the deadlines slightly differ.
The Movement Reference Number (MRN) will also be sent to the person who has submitted the ENS. With ICS, this will also be sent to the carrier as well.
The MRN number assigned to the goods, will have been risk assessed by HMRC before being allocated, which it would seem may contain certain numbers that will then determine whether a hold or a check of the goods is required by HMRC.
The MRN number once assigned, must then be included in the overall Goods Movement Reference (GRN) before you can check in at the Port you are using.
With consolidated loads, HMRC stated as an example that if you have 100 seperate loads on a trailer, with 100 different consignors, then effectively you will need 100 Safety & Security Declarations (ENS) to be completed which could cause absolute havoc, so hopefully there will be a simplified way round this in the future, but as it stands that is what will be required heading into the new year.
All in all, the webinar was incredibly informative and is the first of many that HMRC are going to be holding over the upcoming weeks. Here at Eley Consultancy Ltd we will do our best to bring you a roundup of the most relevant webinars and information that is being communicated by HMRC so that you dont miss out on anything.